For What?

Executive Development

The Four-Circle-Model of Management

"Can you learn leadership?"

A broad spectrum of competence and performance is expected from someone in a leadership position. This spectrum consists of several categories of specialized knowledge and skills, including specialist expertise, management, leadership and self-reflection skills.

The fundamentals of each of these leadership behaviors are, of course, genuine expertise knowledge. Expertise knowledge in this context means that a substantial part of a manager’s work takes place in the field. A wide range of professional hands-on know-how is really necessary!

The field of management includes all kinds of methodological leadership and management tools. These tools include being familiar with the role of goals in leadership, the development and adaptation of organizational structures, and the development of processes in which employee tasks are evaluated, assessed and optimally matched to the processes and procedures of the company.All processes relating to social relations between employees and executives fall under the category of leadership. Examples of these processes include: managing the content and intensity of communication at work, employee motivation, the promotion of mutual trust, coaching, and settling disputes or mediating conflicts between employees.

The fourth and most important trait in a leader is self-reflection, or self competence. Self-reflection references the ability of a leader to question their leadership behavior regularly. A leader needs the ability to consider themselves from a quasi bird's-eye view. Self competence is the ability to face what they see and to use this as a source of reflection for feedback from employees. A leader should ask him or herself ‘what can I learn from my own experience with my employees, with goals, structures, processes, and organization?’ The capacity for self-reflection is the most important prerequisite for consistent further development. Self reflection is also key to staying professional and is an essential tool for quality assurance in leadership.

And thus the answer to the question "Can you learn leadership?" is: ... " Yes you can! "

For leadership skills to further develop, they need a wide range of support that varies from case to case. Education and training in the form of seminars is of course an essential component of any management development. In addition, support is also available in the forms of: trade, specialist and management literature, collegial consultations or peer consulting groups, leadership coaching, mentoring, leadership workshops and practice reflection workshops, feedback systems, benchmarking with other companies, professional discussion rounds, training on-the-job and simulation games or the use of the development-assessment center.

Case Study: a successful example of an executive development program. More ...

Specific offers for leadership development can be found in my range of services as a trainer and as a coach.